lily shore
by morninggloriious
Summary: Annabeth never met her soulmate; he died before he could reach Camp Half-Blood. But she has more important things to worry about than her nonexistent love life- like the fact that her former best friend is trying to destroy everything she holds dear.
1. I: The Poison Garden

**PART I: THE POISON GARDEN**

Annabeth could barely keep up, her little legs pumping as hard and fast as they could. Her lungs burned, her breath misting in the cold night air. The oversized leather jacket she wore weighed her down, but she couldn't stop to take it off.

Luke grabbed her hand and pulled her along, following Thalia and Grover down the dark country road in Long Island. Stars glittered above them, and the only sounds were their panting and the slap of shoes on asphalt.

"Almost there!" Grover called, his reedy voice echoing into the night.

Behind them, something screeched.

Annabeth ran faster. Thalia glanced backwards, her hand keeping its iron grip on her mace cannister.

"It's just over this hill- Argh!" Grover stumbled to the ground as a blur of black and red shot out of the shadows, narrowly missing him.

The hellhound didn't last long- Thalia's spear made short work of it -but it was enough.

A screech of laughter pierced the night, and goosebumps rose on the back of Annabeth's neck as a new sound emerged: that of scales rasping against pavement.

Thalia didn't wait to see what it was; in one lightning movement, she pulled Grover back to his feet and tugged him down the road, toward the hill that he had pointed out. Luke followed, scooping Annabeth up in a fireman's carry, ignoring her yelp of protest.

Thalia shoved Grover into the grass, and Annabeth struggled to see her face in the darkness, her own cheek pressed into Luke's bony shoulder.

Another laugh. A howl.

"We're not all going to make it," said Thalia. She still clutched her mace in one hand, and her short black hair, clumpy and damp with sweat, hung in her face. "You guys go on ahead, I'll keep them busy."

" _No_ ," Luke barked. "We're going to be fine." Annabeth could feel his chest rising and falling, rising and falling as his breathing grew rapid, not because of the long run, but because of Thalia.

"No," Thalia said calmly. "We're not." She glanced into the darkness of the road, cloaking whatever it was that hunted them, and Annabeth saw her eyes, wide and blue and beautiful. She tried to say something, but what came out of Annabeth's mouth was little more than an exhausted croak.

Thalia glanced back at her, and a small smile cut through the grim lines of her face. "Besides," she murmured, not to Annabeth, but to Luke. "You have to get Annabeth to safety. It's almost here."

" _No-_ " Luke began, but the triumphant scream of the monster cut him off. Thalia whirled, her spear sprouting instantly out of the mace cannister, her shield springing up from her wrist.

And, at last, the monster came into view. A wicked, long green scaled tail, thick as an oak. Glowing green serpentine eyes. A crocodile grin. She had the torso and arms of a woman, though skeletal with gray-tinged skin, but the hindquarters of a huge snake.

Annabeth knew what she was. Another one of Zeus' scorned lovers.

The Lamia.

Annabeth knew Thalia recognized her too; her body stiffened, and her grip tightened on the spear, making it bristle with electricity. The monster slithered toward them, her speed belying the weight of her massive tail.

"Go!" she shouted as she dodged a swipe of the powerful green tail. The Lamia's smile grew wider, her teeth glinting in the dim light; she ignored Luke and Annabeth, glowing eyes fixed on the prize of Zeus' daughter. "Take them and run!"

Annabeth could feel Luke's hesitation; she wanted to get down and fight too, but she was _so_ tired. Thalia dodged another swipe and lept into the air, her spear aimed for the monster's heart.

And Luke turned and ran, pulling the stunned Grover after him in one hand, and supporting Annabeth with the other. She shut her eyes against the sounds of battle.

She thought she might have heard Thalia, one last time, one last goodbye.

Then Luke cleared the hill and was stumbling down the other side, towards the farmhouse glowing in the distance.

When Annabeth woke two days later, in a soft cotton bed in the Big House, there was a towering pine on the top of the hill.

.

Percy pounded through the woods, Nico's skinny arms wrapped around his neck in a piggyback. He tried not to think about the Minotaur behind them, lumbering through the trees, creating a cacophony of broken branches and heavy, stomping hoofbeats. He had to get Nico, little six year old Nico di Angelo, to safety. He had promised Bianca.

 _Farm Road, Montauk_. Percy had tried to stick close to the water, but he had lost his sense of direction in the woods. He didn't know where they were-

The Minotaur roared behind them, startling Percy out his panicked thoughts and into survival mode. Nico, from his piggyback position on his back, tightened his arms around Percy's neck.

The Minotaur was definitely gaining now. Percy did not know how long he had been running, but light filtered through the trees, gaining strength as dawn approached. The thing had crummy enough eyesight that it had a hard time tracking them, and, luckily ( _extremely_ luckily), there was little wind to spread their scent, but the increased light would not work in their favor.

The creek he followed seemed endless, winding between trees and boulders, never wide enough to be of real use. Nico was still clinging to his back, but Percy struggled to maintain his grip in his thighs. The kid was skinny enough that carrying him was never much of a challenge, but Percy had never supported him for so long at such a pace.

In the back of his mind, Percy marveled at how calm Nico was. Percy could feel his eyelashes tickling the back of his neck, where Nico's eyes were shut tight against the grave reality of their situation. He also wondered how the hell they were still alive.

Percy focused on his breathing, in and out, in and out, but not too loudly, to avoid giving the _very persistent_ Minotaur another means of tracking him. The forest had a layer of pinestraw to help mask his footfalls, but he could not avoid the twigs and pinecones blocking his path, stomping over them with loud snaps and crunches. He ducked to avoid a low hanging branch and-

Hope surged through him.

The beach, _at last_.

The creek was widening, the water rushing faster as it raced toward the sea, the tree roots becoming more sparse. Percy leapt into the stream, his shoes splashing through it, sliding over rocks and the plants that thrived in the brackish water. The Minotaur bellowed behind them, but Percy didn't care.

 _We're going to make it. It's going to be_ -

Nico screamed. A loud, piercing yelp that startled Percy so much that Nico's legs slipped from his grip, and he went tumbling into the creek.

"No! Percy, we can't-" Nico was sobbing, tears running down his face, and Percy tried to scoop him up, to pull him toward the ocean, but Nico struggled away from him, squirming _toward_ the monster that was about to kill them. His pale cheeks had turned an ugly, tear streaked red, and the water rushed past him, soaking his dirty clothes.

"Nico! We don't have time for this! We have to _go_!" Percy had the fleeting thought that he would regret such harsh words later, but they had to _move_. _NOW_. The monster was gaining, the distance closing every second, there would probably be more- Nico shook his head, trying to get to his feet, his barefeet slipping on the creek bed as he avoided Percy's attempts to grab him. His high pitched voice was shaking. "No! Something awful's going to-to-"

The Minotaur roared, and Percy suddenly realized that it was _right fucking there_. It had finally gotten close enough to charge, head down, horns sharpened to a deadly point, its footfalls shaking the earth beneath them.

Sally Jackson's voice floated through Percy's mind. _Wait as it charges, then jump out of the way_. _The Minotaur is not smart. Confuse it._

Percy waited, staring at the snot tripping from the thing's snout, the underwear it wore truly disgusting-

He dove, tackling Nico out of the way as the Minotaur blasted past, a wave of reeking air hitting them as it blundered into the woods.

Before Nico could resist anymore, Percy snatched him up, hauling him over his shoulder as he sloshed through the creek, toward the beach and away from those gods-damned woods. The water felt rejuvenating on Percy's skin.

NIco, stunned for only a moment, began to struggle, screaming as they neared the sand. He did not seem to care about the giant monster currently trying to kill them, only about keeping Percy away from the beach.

The noise rioted against Percy's eardrums as he struggled to listen for the thundering steps of the monster. The water sloshed around his shins. The waves pounding the shore ahead seemed to beckon to him. Percy followed their call, powerless to do anything other than slog toward the safety of his father's domain. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, exhausted. Nico continued to struggle.

Percy was so tired.

Then Nico stopped screaming, his voice calling out a warning as Percy suddenly became aware of the Minotaur's stomping charge. Percy whirled around, turning to face it, to apply the tactics his mother had taught him- but its arms were out, ready to snatch them out of the water, to drag them back into its Labyrinth. And devour, as it had done all those centuries ago.

Percy had to protect Nico. He had promised Bianca.

He dumped the kid, racing forward as the Minotaur hit the water, and threw himself toward it, his right hand already summoning Riptide, the tiny pen growing into the ancient Celestial Bronze sword.

As if in slow motion, Percy watched the sword, felt himself flying through the air- he had jumped possibly high, he realized, the water had propelled him forward, forward, _forward-_

Percy landed on the horn of the Minotaur, the point, sharp from years of killing, slamming through his gut- his spine exploded in pain-

Riptide plunged into the monster's eye-

Percy fell back into the water in an explosion of golden dust.

.

Sixteen year old Piper McLean watched as Annabeth Chase poked at the ancient VCR in the small living room of the Big House.

"'Kay, so," she was saying, "Here's the orientation film, and after that I'll take you on the tour. Sound okay?"

Piper could only nod. The day had been a blur of impossible creatures and revelations- her mother, a _goddess_.

She twisted the small decorative pillow in her lap, the fabric clearly old and worn, but comforting. Piper looked down at the beige material, her gaze sliding from the pillow to her soulmark, the name "Jason Grace" printed clearly on her left ring finger.

She wondered if he was here.

On the floor in front of the box-like television, Annabeth made a small sound of triumph. "Ah! Here we go."

The screen flickered to life, and Piper forgot her soulmark as the film - clearly ancient and outdated - explained this new world Piper had been thrown into when a renegade wind spirit attacked her and her friends on a field trip to the Grand Canyon. Gods and goddesses, Western Civilization. Parentage. Monsters. Something called the Mist. Even soulmarks, common among mortals, were rooted in the divine.

Oh, God (or gods?). Where was Leo when she needed him?

When the movie ended, Annabeth led the way outside. A self-proclaimed daughter of Athena, she looked tired, but Piper had a feeling that she usually looked like that. Her eyes were slightly sad, though she was quick to smile.

Piper followed Annabeth down the porch steps and across the grass towards a cluster of cabins. "Okay, so," Annabeth was saying, "Since we don't know who your mom is, you'll stay in the Hermes cabin. Hermes is the god of travellers, so they take in the undetermined kids."

Piper could only nod as they neared Cabin 11, where a pair of twins sat on the stoop. They glanced up from the notepad they were scribbling on and hastily flipped it over.

"Hermes is also the god of thieves," Annabeth muttered. "So watch your wallet."

Oh, well. With all the crap Piper had stolen over the years, she'd probably fit right in. Too bad it was her mom that was the goddess.

"Is Leo going to stay here too?"

Annabeth shook her head. "No. The flaming hammer thing? That means his dad is Hephaestus, the god of fire and blacksmiths. But he will be in Cabin 9, which is just next door."

"Why didn't you show him the orientation video?"

"If we know someone's parentage, we like to have their siblings explain it. He's probably in the forge right now."

"You guys have a forge?"

Annabeth ignored her as they reached the twins. "Guys, this is Piper McLean, undetermined for now. Piper, this is Connor and Travis Stoll, the heads of the Hermes cabin."

They nodded in unison, muttering greetings as one shuffled with the notepad. Annabeth frowned at it, and was opening her mouth to comment, when the door behind them swung open and a pale boy in a retro-looking aviator jacket stumbled out, blinking rapidly in the bright sunlight. He glanced down at the Stoll brothers before focusing on Annabeth, ignoring Piper completely; Piper wouldn't have thought it possible, but his face went even whiter.

Annabeth smiled slightly at him before turning to Piper. "This is Nico di Angelo. He's been here almost as long as I have. Nico, this is Piper."

Nico tore his eyes away from Annabeth to nod at Piper before moving past the Stolls and speeding away from them, all but running in his haste to get away from them.

Annabeth sighed. "Well, anyway. Come on, Piper, I'll show you the climbing wall."

As they walked past a small building that Annabeth said was the bathrooms, Piper asked, "What was that guy's deal?"

Annabeth frowned. "It's a long story."

"Try me."

Sighing, Annabeth paused as they neared a small lake, where canoes floated in the water. "A lot of major mortal wars are fueled by the gods. World War Two was a rift between the children of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and Hades' kids on the other. It was. . . not good. So after the war, they - we call them the Big Three - they swore an oath to not to have anymore kids with mortals. And Nico is a son of Hades."

"So he's the only kid of the Big Three, and he's not even supposed to exist." Piper couldn't imagine how that must feel, even if that didn't explain how Nico had fixated on Annabeth at the cabin. She leaned over to gaze into the clear blue water, and was startled to see eyes blinking back up at her. Women, their dark hair drifting in the water, smiled from where they sat at the bottom of the crystal clear lake, their teeth a little too sharp. Annabeth leaned over too, and nodded down at them. "Naiads. Harmless, but a little too flirtatious."

Maybe Nico just had a crush, Piper thought. Annabeth was stunning, with her curly blond hair and grey eyes flashing in the light reflected off the water.

"And, no, there have been other children," Annabeth continued. "Nico had a sister, and there was a son of Poseidon, and a daughter of Zeus."

"What happened to them?"

"Dead. When one is found out, the other gods send out monsters to hunt them. Nico's the only one that made it the Camp Half-Blood alive."

Piper felt her blood run cold. "So. . . the other gods basically killed them."

Annabeth shrugged. "It's more complicated than that. The gods have been around or so long, and they're so intermarried and have betrayed each other so many times. None of it- none of this life is easy." She looked up at Piper, her attempt at a smile turning more into a grimace. "If you hadn't been attacked, we try to keep most demigods in the dark about their parentage. Once you know about it, the easier you attract monsters."

Nodding, Piper swallowed thickly. It felt like there was a tennis ball in her throat. "I- it feels like my already complicated life just got a whole lot more complex."

Annabeth patted Piper's arm. "Come on, I'll show you the armory. Playing with knives always cheers me up."

.

Leo Valdez liked Camp Half-Blood. It explained, well, a lot about his life.

Most of it, anyway.

He wasn't really sure about his fire powers, even if they came in handy in the forge, where Beckendorf taught him how to make swords and shields- it wasn't even that hard. He'd even made Piper a new sheath for her dagger, Katoptris, one that was pretty enough to satisfy even Piper's new Aphrodite siblings, but still simple enough to suit Piper.

It had been a Thing, Piper's claiming. At the campfire and sing-a-long at the end of their first day, Piper had suddenly exploded into an insanely good looking person that barely even looked like the Piper Leo knew; she had complained for days about its effects, purposely wearing ratty clothes until the charm wore off.

He'd tried to flirt with her cabin leader, Silena, but she seemed a lot more interested in Beckendorf, so he'd quickly given up. The rest of the Aphrodite kids had looked at him like A) he was garbage, or B) they would eat him for lunch.

Normally Leo would totally be down for being someone's lunch, as he didn't have a soulmark and probably never would, but Piper had warned him away, going so far as to threaten to charmspeak him away from them. Piper had lots of feelings about the charmspeak, most of all guilt over taking away someone's free will, so Leo knew she was serious.

Unlike Piper, Leo liked his siblings, especially Beckendorf, who sometimes even chuckled at Leo's terrible jokes, and was teaching him all about the forge and the workings of Cabin 9, which had a lot going on that not even Chiron knew about. He liked the Stoll brothers, and had helped them play a few practical jokes on the other cabins. He liked sitting in the sun by the canoe lake, flirting with the girls who came by and rolled their eyes at him. He liked the lessons Annabeth gave him and Piper on swordplay and how to kill monsters and Ancient Greek.

Leo just liked Camp Half-Blood. It was a million times better than any of his foster homes, or the Wilderness School, even if it had that same free-for-all vibe.

It even began to feel like home.

So the bulls came as a surprise.

Leo woke one morning a few weeks after entering camp to the clangor of alarm bells and the much closer shriek of Cabin 9's security system. Stumbling out of bed, he almost ran into Nyssa, who was buckling a chest plate over her PJs.

"What-"

"The Camp's under attack!" she called over her shoulder as she snatched up a hammer as long as her arm and slammed the button to open the vault doors to the cabin; the gears whined as they spun faster than Leo had ever seen them, and the doors shot open. Nyssa darted between them, hammer poised for the attack.

Leo began to chase after her, but then went back for pants.

When he got outside, Leo's first impression was of a rodeo gone horribly, horribly wrong. Campers in various stages of dress (some with armor, some without) tried to corral a pair of _ginormous_ bulls away from the cabins. The things glowed in the early morning sun, and Leo was confused to see the grass beneath their massive hooves catch fire.

"Colchis bulls," said a voice beside him, and Leo looked around to see Annabeth, dressed in a NYU t-shirt and sleep shorts, hair in a sleep-matted braid; her knife was clutched in one hand. "Made by Hephaestus. Only way to touch them without burning to a crisp is Medea's SPF 50,000."

Leo winced as a camper got close enough to a bull's rear end that it kicked, and the camper had to duck to avoid getting a hoof to the face. "Got a bottle?"

Stupid question. Even now, her dagger was sheathed, and Annabeth was glopping sunscreen on her hands and arms and legs. Tossing Leo the empty bottle ("Tropical Coconut Scented!" enthused the label), she pulled out her dagger and charged into the fray.

Shit. Tough lady.

In the fight, Leo could see Nyssa in front of a bull, swinging her hammer in an arc that barely dented its chest; she dove out of the way to escape a plume of red hot fire from its horns.

 _Fire_.

Leo realized he had to do something heroic, not just stand around and watch as some bulls flambéed his friends. Ducking back into Cabin 9, he grabbed the first thing he could reach off the weapons wall, and ran back outside and straight toward the nearest bull.

It was only when Leo got within ten feet of the thing that he realized he had grabbed the weed whacker.

Oh well. It would have to do. It was a godly weed whacker, after all. Leo tugged the power cord, and it roared to life. He dove between two campers and found himself looking into the ruby eyes of the bull.

 _Fuck, that's scary._

It bellowed, fire spitting from it horns, and Leo could hear the other campers yelling as he swung the weed wacker toward the horn and fire washed over him, scorching the grass.

It was like a warm bath. The fire didn't even singe his clothes.

The weed wacker sliced through one horn and then the other, and Leo could feel himself grinning as he swung the whacker again, slicing through the copper skin and revealing the intricate wiring beneath. Leo speared the whacker into the bull's chest, plunging it into the gears with all his strength.

And, miracle of miracles, the huge bronze body of the bull shuddered, the light fading from the rubies, and keeled over.

Leo powered off the weed whacker, not bothering to pull it out of the bull's massive torso. The other bull was in the process of being killed- he could see Annabeth on the bull's back and holding on for dear life as an Ares girl slashed with her spear, her siblings clustered around it, forming an impenetrable wall of shields and pure muscle.

He looked around to see Nyssa and the others gaping at him, their pajamas singed from the fight. "But-" she spluttered, "The fire!"

Leo wanted to say something cool or at least not completely stupid, but all he could manage was "Uhhh. . ." It dawned on him that the whole thing had lasted about a minute; it had felt so much longer when he had been eye to eye with the bull.

The Ares girl - he remembered now that her name was Clarisse - yelled in triumph as the second bull went down, Annabeth throwing herself clear to avoid being crushed.

She tumbled to a stop close by and was on her feet in a flash; Leo braced himself, ready to be yelled at, but she was looking in horror at the nearby Silena and Piper. "How did they get past the border line!" she demanded, and, not waiting for an answer, took off toward the Big House.

Piper and Silena ran after her, Clarisse in hot pursuit, and Leo exchanged one look with Nyssa before they both sprinted after them. Over his own panting, Leo could hear other campers racing behind them as they all followed Annabeth over the central creek and past the Arts and Crafts cabin, pounding up Half Blood Hill toward the towering pine tree that marked the camp boundary.

As one, the campers skidded to a stop. Leo could hear gasps and murmurs of shock at the site of the pine tree.

Someone had bored a hole in the trunk, and it oozed green sap. The pine needles were already tinged yellow; Leo could almost see the sickness passing through the tree.

Chiron was already bent beside it, examining the hole with a grimace. Annabeth watched, her face pale, as he shook his head. "Poisoned."

Leo exchanged a puzzled glance with Piper. What was the big deal about a dying tree? It was a bummer, but-

Beside Chiron, shadows rippled, and Nico di Angelo stumbled into the light; like Annabeth, he looked desolate. "Percy's too. The roots have been poisoned, the whole thing looks sick."

Another murmur went through the campers, and Chiron at looked up at them. He stood up, his front legs unfolding beneath him. "Campers," he said, his voice carrying with ease. "Please go enjoy breakfast in the mess hall; we will do her no good just staring. Counselors, there will be a war council at noon, the usual place."

Muttering, the campers dispersed. Leo stayed where he was beside Piper, who was looking at Annabeth with concern. Nico put his hand to the bark of the tree and winced. "Dying. She's got a few weeks, maybe a little over a month."

"And Perseus?" Chiron asked calmly.

Nico shrugged, but his bottom lip trembled. "Longer, probably. The water will do its best for him. But it won't hold off forever." He glanced at Annabeth, who was still staring at the hole in the tree, hand clutched to her camp necklace, before continuing. "You can't heal it."

It wasn't a question.

Chiron shook his head anyway. "I will try my bes-"

"It was Luke."

Annabeth had let go of her necklace; now she clutched her dagger. "It was Luke," she repeated. "He did this. He tried to destroy Olympus and now- now, he's trying to destroy Camp Half-Blood too."

.

Nico de Angelo sat on the grass next to the small delta created by the creek flowing into the ocean. It was a nice spot, usually quiet and peaceful, with the woods at his back and the ocean before him.

But that wasn't why Nico came here.

Nico came here because this was Percy Jackson's final resting place.

The water lilies that had replaced Percy's body spread through the delta, created a miniature ecosystem, a safe haven for fish and small sea creatures. When Percy had died nine years ago, there had been only one stem in the center of the delta with one small flower, but it had grown so the flowers spread from the creek to a few feet into the sea, rising and falling in the current. Nico had looked through a book on water plants; Percy's leaves and flowers were unlike anything he could find, as if Poseidon had created a new species just for his son. It flowered year-round, and thrived in the brackish water. The blooms were a myriad of colors, from a bright red to a musty purple to a brilliant blue, the most common color.

But like Thalia's needles, the brilliant green leaves had dulled into a sickly yellow, and the blossoms were wilting. A few small fish floated in the water, dead. Nico could see a trail of carnage, as if someone had stomped through them to get to the central stem, over turning as much as they could and ripping up roots and flowers. The central stem now had a series of gouges in it; the poisoner had to be more careful here than with Thalia. They couldn't have just ripped the stem out; that way, it could be replanted by the nereids that sometimes visited the site to check up on the sea god's son.

Already, Nico could see one, her dark hair swaying down her back as she examined a blossom. As usual, she ignored him, as all the nereids ignored the few campers that happened upon them. Since Nico had taken to haunting the spot when he arrived at Camp Half-Blood, other campers tended to avoid it, including Annabeth, unless she was in a particularly awful mood and didn't want to be found.

After Percy's death, Nico had felt terrible; he knew it was his fault that Percy had not survived. _Nico_ had screamed. He had tried to get Percy to stop. After they figured out his parentage, Chiron had told him that he had probably had a premonition of Percy's death and tried to stop it, but Nico couldn't remember much. It was all a blur of trees and darkness and the Minotaur and Percy trying to get him to stop crying so they could _go_.

And to find out years later from Luke that Percy had a soulmate, a beautiful, smart girl with Percy's name written somewhere on her body. . . guilt ate Nico alive. Because Percy should have gotten to meet her. Percy should have lived long enough to get to know Annabeth, whom Nico had deprived of a soulmate.

The nereid in the water sighed softly and sunk down to disappear beneath the dying leaves.


	2. II: Weapons of Light

**PART II: WEAPONS OF LIGHT**

Piper found Annabeth crouched by Thalia's tree.

It was past one in the afternoon; the war council was over. Piper didn't know what had been said, but judging from Annabeth's expression and her death grip on her knife, it hadn't been good.

Annabeth stared at the hole bored into the trunk, not looking up when Piper called her name. "Luke did this. I don't care what they say. Luke did this."

Piper figured the direct approach was best. "Who's Luke?" She had asked a few campers, not wanting to upset Annabeth by asking, but had only gotten a few conflicting, vague answers; Silena had downright refused to talk about it.

Annabeth looked up at her, her expression almost surprised. "Oh yeah, I forgot that you haven't been here long." Sighing, she straightened out of her crouch and sat down on her butt, patting the grass beside her. "It's a long story."

"Another one?"

Annabeth cracked a small smile. "Well, it's actually the same story. I just. . . told you sort of the bare bones last time."

"Yeah?" Piper sat, wiggling slightly to get comfortable; the grass was damp enough that she knew she'd get a spot on her shorts. "Let's hear the rest, then."

"I. . . I grew up in a- I had a rough childhood. Since Athena's an eternal virgin, her kids aren't born the usual way. One of the winds put me on my dad's doorstep in a golden cradle. But my dad wasn't that interested in having a kid. He even asked my mom to raise me on Olympus, but that's not how things are done, so he was stuck with me. And it was okay for a while, but then he got married and had two kids and they were perfect and mortal and weren't attacked by monsters every other week and my stepmom was. . . very mortal. So when I was seven, I left."

"You left?" Piper couldn't imagine going out on her own when she was just seven.

Annabeth nodded. "Athena guided me. After only a few days, Luke and Thalia found me." Her voice warmed, and Piper could hear the nostalgia in her voice. "Luke is a son of Hermes, and Thalia a daughter of Zeus. Their mortal parents weren't so hot either, so they took me in and looked after me. Taught me how to fight. And it was good- or at least, not horrible for a while, only a few months. They were my family.

"And then Camp Half-Blood sent a satyr. Chiron had gotten wind that there was a daughter of Zeus running around, and he was worried. So the satyr brought us to camp. But Chiron wasn't the only one who had heard about Thalia. Hades was furious that Zeus broke the bargain, and let out some of the worst monsters. Thalia made her last stand _here_. So Luke and Grover and I could escape."

Annabeth's voice grew thick, and she picked aimlessly at a scab on her leg, avoiding Piper's eye. "Zeus took pity on his daughter, and turned her into a pine tree before she could die, so she wouldn't have to face trial in the Underworld. Her spirit strengthened the borders, so monsters could no longer cross over without permission."

Annabeth's hand moved from the grass to her left ribs, just under her breast. "And a few months later, I got my soulmark. Percy Jackson. And a few months after _that_ , some campers found Nico di Angelo down on the beach. It took the counselors a long time to get him to calm down, and he was bedridden for a few days - he was _so_ skinny, I remember that, everyone was worried about him eating enough - but Chiron eventually got him to spill.

"Nico's sister had died, and entrusted his care to Percy. We don't know exactly what happened to Nico's sister, or where Percy was before this, but he brought Nico to Camp. We also don't know exactly how they managed to get down to beach; Nico says he remembers running through the woods. . . but however Percy got them there, the Minotaur attacked before he could find help."

Piper sucked in a breath. That was one of the few monsters she had actually knew a lot about. "Like, the Labyrinth monster? Half man, half bull, Theseus and Ariadne and all that?"

Annabeth nodded. "The stuff of legends," she said dryly, as if someone had said this to her a lot and expected her to take pride in it. "Percy killed it, but. . . he didn't survive either. And Poseidon took a leaf out of Zeus' book and turned him into some water lilies. His presence compounded Thalia's effect on the borders, strengthened the Mist so even monsters had a hard time finding the camp."

"I'm sorry."

Annabeth shrugged. "Don't be. I never knew him. I mean, it's hard and a bit weird," she explained, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, "Even for demigod standards. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but it's not something I like to think about a lot and it's easier just to say that my soulmate's dead, rather than explaining the whole 'my soulmate's a plant' thing."

"No, I get it," Piper assured her, glancing down at her own soulmark on her finger. "If that happened to me. . . I've been through stuff that your stuff makes look like a piece of cake, and I don't even like to talk about it. But what happened to Luke? Why is he trying to kill Thalia and Percy's. . . remains."

"Luke. . . Luke always felt that the gods should do more for us. He felt abandoned by Hermes, even though Hermes gave him a quest and actually talked to him once or twice, which is a million times more than what most of us get." Annabeth's tone turned bitter. "And Thalia's death just sort of cemented that. And he hated my soulmark. Kept on asking why Aphrodite - or Eros or whoever - had given it to me, if Percy was going to die before I met him and make me suffer. And the Hermes cabin is where the undetermined kids go. So Luke was always around these kids who had been abandoned by their parents and I guess things got really bad in there. So he tried to rebel. Cooked up some stupid plan to steal Zeus' Master Bolt, tried to turn a few demigods to his way of thinking. Grover and I stopped him, but he escaped somehow. Didn't hear anything from him in months. Mr. D said he'd probably been eaten by something."

Her voice darkened, and she turned to look up at the towering pine. "So now he's hit Camp Half-Blood's borders. And without them, the camp will be overrun by monsters."

"Shit."

"Yeah. And the war council- Chiron and Mr. D aren't sure they can prove who did it. I mean, it's obvious to _us_ that it was Luke, but the gods aren't going to be so easily satisfied. And Chiron - he needs to examine the poison more to be sure - Chiron's not sure he can heal it."

"What if he can't?" Piper stared out over the valley. The satyrs playing volleyball and wandering through the strawberry fields with the Demeter kids and Dionysus' twin sons. Campers in the canoe lake and the archery range, the Apollo kids dominating, as usual. Piper could see Silena sitting with Beckendorf on the steps to the Arts and Crafts cabin. The dark form that was Nico appeared to melt out of the woods, casting a dark shadow in the heat of the day.

"If he can't," Annabeth repeated, drawing herself up. Her stormy eyes glinted, and her words echoed with promise. "Then we defend Camp Half-Blood and stop Luke ourselves."

.

Things only got worse from there.

Monsters attacked with increasing frequency, and Piper could feel the lull in the campers' spirits. The evening campfire burned a sluggish brown instead of its usual cheerful display, and the normal hum of conversation in the mess hall dimmed slowly into a restless murmur.

Patrols were scheduled for every hour of the day, and Piper had hardly seen Leo all week. She patrolled with Silena and an Apollo camper named Will Solace in the afternoons, and when Leo wasn't keeping vigil with Beckendorf, he was holed up with the other Hephaestus campers, drawing up blueprints for new automatons to guard the only time they had together was their daily Greek lessons with Annabeth, and those were often cut short by a monster attack or Annabeth's own agenda.

Piper missed her best friend. Leo always understood her, and he knew when to shut up and when to crack a stupid joke. It was strange not having him around to lighten the mood, especially when everyone in the camp was tired and cranky.

Piper walked slowly across the grass towards Aphrodite's cabin as thunder boomed overhead. No one had answered her knock at Cabin 9, and the oncoming storm just made everything worse.

Silena looked up anxiously from her porch rocking chair, gazing pensively up at the grey sky. "Zeus isn't happy," she commented.

"You know this because of the thunder?" Piper asked as she sat in the next rocker. The chairs were painted a dusty pink that popped against the baby blue and white checkerboard of the deck and matched the cabin door. Its corresponding blue cushion was soft against Piper's back.

Silena nodded absently, still staring at the clouds as rain began to fall, sending goosebumps down Piper's arms. "That, and outside weather isn't supposed to affect us. This place stays pretty cool year round."

"Oh," Piper murmured, wondering why she hadn't noticed that before. "Is it raining because . . . " She trailed off, unsure how to phrase it.

Silena understood anyway, finally looking around at Piper, who blinked at her tense expression. Silena's eyes had always been pretty, but now they seemed to glow with something Piper couldn't place. "Well, Zeus isn't going to be happy that his only mortal child has been poisoned. And with Percy and Thalia's roots failing, the borders aren't what they're supposed to be."

Piper nodded, twisting her fingers together. The rain plunked against the cabin's roof and fell in sheets, blurring the world outside the porch. She could hear the hurried footsteps of campers running back to their cabins, and the heavy tromp-tromp-tromp of the Ares campers moving by on their way to what was sure to be a miserable border patrol. Silena's chair creaked against the wooden slats of the porch.

Piper gazed down at her fingers, twisted together around her father's ring on her right hand, the soulmark on her left ring finger clearly visible.

Jason Grace.

"Silena?"

"Hmm?"

Piper traced the name that had been with her as long as she could remember. "Do you have a soulmark?"

"Yes. All of Aphrodite's children are born with theirs."

Piper looked up, surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah, it's a little gift from Mom." Silena's tone wasn't exactly bitter, but there was a discordant note in her voice. "Of course, that doesn't mean our soulmate automatically knows us."

Piper thought about Charles Beckendorf, how he hung on every word Silena said, but hadn't asked her out.

"What determines when people get their soulmarks?"

Silena shrugged. "Depends on the god that activates it. Eros, or Cupid, normally, but in more passionate cases, Mom steps in- she likes the drama. Hera does a few, mostly power couples. Even though her marriage isn't all that great, the couples she creates usually are pretty ride or die."  
"What about Annabeth?"

Silena paused in her rocking, her foot stilling. "And Percy?" Her voice was almost drowned out by another rumble of thunder.

"Yeah."

"That's a tough one." Silena's chair began to move again. "If Percy had died outright, instead of this whole plant business, I'd say Mom put it there. She would like the drama of Annabeth having to meet new love interests with this barrier in the way. Annabeth would have to get over Percy's death in order to love again- that happens, more often than you think. People die or fall out of love, and the soulmark fades. When they move on, they could get another soulmark. But Percy's technically still alive, so Annabeth's in this awkward limbo." Silena paused, fiddling with her own rings, more numerous and intricate than Piper's. "I'd put my money on Hera. Not to be romantic or tragic or happy, but more as a reminder of fidelity. To keep her from anyone else."

"That's. . . awful. Why bother?"

Silena shrugged. "Sometimes the gods just. . . I don't know. Not even the gods are completely sure how soulmates work. They don't have any, and some mortals don't have any, or some have more than one. It clashes with the ancient myths. Hera could be doing this out of spite, maybe she had a fight with Athena or something, or she could really by trying to do what's best for Annabeth."

"Do the gods know what the soulmark is going to say? I mean, Hera had to know that Percy was going to- well. It's so weird, there's not a good way to describe what happened to them, is there?"

"Nope. And yeah, Hera could probably tell who was going to fit Annabeth best, and even if she didn't know what absolutely was going to happen to him, she could read the writing on the wall. Demigods don't usually end up with a happily ever after, do they? It's all a mess. And this is all conjecture. Even if no one, including the gods, knows _exactly_ what's up with the soulmarks, _only_ the gods can put them into place. Not even us, Aphrodite's children."

Piper nodded slowly, letting her left hand dangle off the chair's armrest, and stared out into the gathering storm.

.

Leo sat with Annabeth and Piper on the carpet of the Big House's living room, watching as Piper aimlessly spun Katoptris on the hardwood, as if they were playing a game of Spin-the-Dagger. Annabeth nervously slapped her Yankees cap against her thigh. The other camp counselors milled around them; though the room was fairly crowded, it was quiet as they waited.

Leo fiddled with a bit of copper wire as he listened to Travis and Connor's whispered conversation about whether or not they should go through with tonight's planned assault in Capture the Flag or just wing it. Across the room, Lee Fletcher eyed them suspiciously; the Apollo cabin held the other flag.

Nico di Angelo sat curled in an armchair, knees pulled up to his chest, gazing out the window at the sunny day beyond as if it personally offended him.

Leo agreed; the weather, besides last week's thunderstorm, was much too cheerful for their situation, though it was good conditions for monster fighting.

Light hoofbeats sounded in the hall, and everyone straightened as Chiron came in, walking more slowly as he took in the room and the assembled campers.

Leo's fingers clenched around the wire as he watched Chiron kneel on the carpet so he was as close to sitting as a centaur could be. Leo noticed that Annabeth's face was white, lips pressed together as the gathered cabin leaders waited for Chiron to speak.

"I am sorry to say," he began, hands clasped together, "that the gods have decided to, for lack of a better word, to fire me."

The outcry was immediate. Katie Gardner gasped loudly, Clarisse growled, and Silena whispered a small, horrified, "No!"

"You must not do anything rash," Chiron continued, ignoring the commotion. "The Camp needs you all. The new activities director, Tantalus, will arrive by dinner tonight."

Leo noticed Nico's eyebrows tick upward in surprise. Annabeth shook her head in dismay. "But why?" she asked. "This is crazy! Chiron, you can't have had anything to do with the poisonings!"

"Nevertheless," Chiron said. "Some of the Olympians do not trust me now, for I failed to prevent it, and I failed to cure it. Lord Zeus is most upset. The tree he created from the spirit of his daughter, poisoned! Not to mention Lord Poseidon. Someone must take the blame, and I am afraid that has to be me."

"Um, but don't we all kind of know that Luke did it?" Travis asked.

"Even so," Chiron replied. "There is no proof."

Clarisse scowled from her spot by the door. "And Tantalus? As the new activities director? The guy who fed his own son to the gods is going to have a shiny new job looking after _children_?"

"It is no longer my place to question," Chiron said diplomatically, but Leo could almost see the inward eye roll. Beside him, Piper gently took Annabeth's hand in hers, and he remembered that Chiron had practically raised Annabeth.

"But the gods made you immortal as long as you were needed to train heroes, right?" Beckendorf argued, his deep voice cutting through the room.

Chiron ignored him. "After I have gone-" Annabeth made a small, whimpering sound "-I urge you all to stay in the Camp, to lead your siblings and protect them. Think before you act, and do not do anything rash. In the meantime, I will visit some relatives in Florida. Maybe they will know a cure to the poison that I have forgotten."

Outside, the sound of the conch horn blew across the valley. "You'd best be heading to dinner," Chiron said. "War council adjourned."

Leo stood up, his knees creaking, as the counselors filed out of the room (all except Nico, who simply vanished into the shadows in the corner). Piper followed, and Leo paused to wait while she caught Annabeth's eye.

"You guys go on ahead," she said quietly, her voice hoarse. "I'll be fine, I just. . . need a sec."

Piper nodded, and Leo walked with her in silence until they reached the mess hall, where Piper left to join her cabin, and Leo wandered over to the table where Beckendorf was sitting with Nyssa and Harley.

They listened glumly as Beckendorf recounted what had happened at the meeting; around them, the other campers filed in, each moving to their respective table. Mr. D wandered in, his tiger-striped shirt rumpled, and fell into his seat at the head table, where a satyr instantly appeared to hand him a Diet Coke.

After dumping a portion of his food into the central brazier for his dad, Leo sat quietly as he dug into the BBQ sandwich that a nymph had brought him. He hadn't known Chiron long, but the centaur had been kind to him, which was more than he could say about some of his foster parents and relatives.

Annabeth appeared at one end of the pavilion, eyes visibly red, and wandered over to her table, where her brother Malcolm patted her gently on the shoulder.

She had been at Camp Half-Blood for longer than anyone else (beating Nico by only a few months); Chiron must be like a father to her. Leo didn't know much about Annabeth's mortal family, but they didn't sound much better than his own. He wished he could do something to help, but there didn't seem to be anything anyone could do.

There was a muted exclamation, and Leo looked around to see a new man sitting at the head table beside Mr. D. Leo wondered why he hadn't noticed him before - he was wearing a bright orange prison jumpsuit that clashed horribly with just about everything. As he watched, the man grabbed for a hunk of bread, only for it to fly off the end of the table into the brazier.

"Um," he said.

Nyssa looked around at the table just as a slice of pizza followed its brother to a fiery death. Harley snickered over his dessert plate. "That must be Tantalus."

"Who exactly is this guy?" Leo asked.

Beckendorf sighed. "An ancient Anatolian king who stole nectar and ambrosia from the Olympians' table and shared it with other mortals. It probably wouldn't have gone so badly for him if he hadn't sacrificed his own son to them afterwards. For them to eat."

"Ew."

"Yeah," Beckendorf said. "Only Demeter had a bit, 'cause she was upset over Persephone, and it was only a bit of his shoulder. And he ended up okay, Zeus put him back together and Dad made him a new shoulder. But Zeus also slapped Tantalus with the Master Bolt and brought him down to Hades to be judged."

"That's what's up with the food thing," Nyssa put in. "His punishment was to stand on an island with a fruit tree in the middle of a lake, but never eat or drink. Doesn't seem to stop him from trying, though."

"Is that- maybe a little harsh?" Leo muttered, smiling in thanks at the nymph who slid a slice of chocolate pecan pie on his plate. Harley made a face, cookie crumbs dotting his chin. "The gods don't half ass punishments. And in Ancient Greece, cannibalism and filicide are, like, super taboo. Even more taboo than they are nowadays."

"I dunno," Shane piped up from Harley's other side. "Cannibalism is still pretty taboo."

"Yeah, but, like, if you end up in a plane crash and you eat the dead passengers to survive, no one's gonna arrest you-"

As they argued, Leo and Beckendorf watched as more food darted off the head table. Tantalus was getting visibly agitated, his grey hair matted and hanging in clumps around his face. Beside him, Mr. D only watched the mayhem, one eyebrow raised as his sipped his Coke, clearly enjoying the free entertainment of watching Tantalus scramble after the flying food. Any other day Leo would have laughed too.

Looking around the dining pavilion, he could see more faces watching Chiron's replacement, most laughing, some frowning in dismay. He caught Piper's eye across the room.

She shook her head. Outside, the sky darkened toward dusk.

.

Piper spun the dagger in her hand, watching as Katoptris glinted in the light of the setting sun. A few feet away, a wood nymph sang a healing melody to Thalia's tree, accompanied by a satyr on the pan flute.

As the music went on, the grass became a little greener, and the tree looked a little healthier. But it wouldn't last long after the music stopped.

Tantalus had insisted that the campers stop guarding the camp and focus more on blood sports like the chariot race that morning, but a few of the older ones had quietly kept it up, spearheaded by Annabeth and Clarisse, taking turns sitting by the tree and patrolling the woods.

Nico di Angelo hardly left the delta anymore, constantly looking after Percy's water lilies, though Piper didn't know if the nature spirits looked after Percy like they did Thalia.

Something shifted in her line of sight, and Piper blinked, coming out of her reverie and taking her eyes of the dagger to glance around the hill.

Nothing had changed; the satyr and nymph were still in their spot by the tree, their song mellowing into more of a dirge.

Piper studied the blade. It shone, almost glowing in the dying sunlight, and her reflection looked back at her, brows slightly furrowed.

Katoptris, the Mirror that belonged to Helen of Troy.

But maybe. . .

Piper stared into the hilt, letting her eyes go slightly unfocused like she had before.

Nothing happened.

She huffed and was just about to stuff the blade back into its sheath when- there.

An image formed, slowly, looking like a white blob that slowly focused into an extremely tacky wedding dress- Drew would have had a heart attack. A monstrous veil covered the bride, and before Piper could examine it further, the image zoomed backwards, showing a dizzying swirl of caves and stone passages before bursting out to show a mountainside cave. The grass glittered a spectacular green, the sea on the far side, and Piper could _feel_ the good vibes that emanated from the vista.

The picture only paused a moment before moving again, showing more grass and - _were those sheep?_ \- and a wooden bridge and a tree, with something that glittered gold . . . it just looked like a golden lump but . . .

Wait. Wasn't there a myth about a Golden something?

The picture kept moving, going back and back to show the entire island (or island _s_ , split by a massive chasm), the entire sea surrounding it . . .

The Atlantic, off the coast of Florida.

The image faded, and Piper was left looking at her own reflection again.

The sun was only a small glimmer of light on the horizon now, turning the sky around it brilliant shades of pink and orange. Piper sheathed Katoptris.

Golden. . . Golden something, something to do with the hero Jason - she had researched this ages ago when her father was working on _King of Sparta_ , and it had stuck in her mind, for obvious reasons.

The Golden Fleece! That was it.

"Hey, Piper."

Piper jumped, nearly leaping from her spot on the grass, and looked wildly around to see Katie Gardner watching her, ready to take over guard duty. "Oh! Katie, you startled me."

"Sorry." Katie gave her an apologetic smile, sitting down by the roots of Thalia's tree. "You should go and get some rest, I'll take over here."

"Yeah, thanks. See you." Piper began to hike her way back to cabins before pausing and walking back towards Katie, who looked quizzically up at her. Already, her hand was on the trunk of the pine tree, helping the nature spirits in their endeavor to heal it.

"Katie," Piper blurted out. "Do you remember what the Golden Fleece is?"

"Oh, yeah. So, um, Zeus sent this ram with golden wool to carry some of his kids to safety, right? So when the surviving one got there, he sacrificed the ram and hung the fleece in a tree, and it brought major prosperity to the town. Animals stopped getting sick and crops grew better, plagues stopped being a thing. It's a big nature thing."

"It could cure the tree?"

Katie's smile slipped. "Probably, but it's been missing for millennia."

"Oh. Thanks, Katie. Goodnight."

"Night, Piper."

Piper stumbled down the hill, half running towards the cabins, barrelling past Cabin 10 and heading straight for Cabin 6.

One of Annabeth's sisters opened the door, looking anxious as she took in Piper's agitated expression. "What is it? Not another monster-"

"No, nothing like that," Piper reassured her. "I just need to talk to Annabeth about something."

Annabeth's head poked out around the door, and the sister shuffled back so Annabeth, dressed in a tank top and sleep shorts, could slip out. "What's up?"

Piper quickly explained what she had seen in Katoptris, including what Katie had said about the Golden Fleece. "Do you think- I mean I could feel its power, Annabeth. It could save the camp!"

Annabeth nodded, looking distant as she stared toward Half-Blood Hill. "It could be the Golden Fleece," she said finally. "But what was this wedding dress thing?"

"It was just someone in a gross wedding dress."

"But what would someone in a gross wedding dress be doing with the Golden Fleece? Unless. . ." Annabeth frowned, deep in thought. "You said you could feel the nature magic through the vision?"

"Yeah."

She nodded slightly, still looking somewhat spacey. After another moment, she spoke: "There's a nature god called Pan. He disappeared millennia ago."

". . . Yeah?"

"But the satyrs are still looking for him," Annabeth continued. "They have never accepted that he's gone. In fact, my friend Grover is out there looking for him right now. If the Golden Fleece really puts off this much power. . ."

"Than the satyrs would have found it by now?"

"Maybe not. Not if it's guarded by something. Something with a taste for satyrs."

"And a penchant for nasty wedding gowns?"

Annabeth shrugged. "You'd be surprised at the weird things monsters do these days. Like us, they've adapted to the modern age. Sort of."

"Either way, we need to find it."

"We need a quest." Annabeth thought for a moment. "You said the dagger showed you where the island was?"

"Off the coast of Florida, in the Atlantic."

Something in Annabeth's eyes caught. "That makes sense. It's the Sea of Monsters."

"The what?"

"The sea that all the old heroes sailed through. Odysseus, Jason, Aeneas. Filled with all sorts of monsters and weird islands and junk. The mortals even have a name for it."

"Wait, the Bermuda Triangle?"

"Yeah. But the Bermuda Triangle is big. And the dagger didn't give you a precise location."

Piper shook her head.

"We should consult the Oracle." Annabeth's face fell. "But Tantalus will never allow us to go. You heard him at the campfire tonight, talking about killing his children, he would like nothing more but to torture us all."

"Maybe if we ask him at tomorrow campfire? In front of everyone, there's no way he can refuse."

"Yeah. Yeah." Annabeth nodded, straightening up from where she leaned on the Athena cabin's porch rail. Her features set in a determined expression, she marched back to the cabin door, bidding Piper goodnight over her shoulder.

Piper dreamed of a golden isle that night.

.

The forge was Leo's favorite place in all of Camp Half Blood. It was like a steam-powered locomotive had smashed into the Greek Parthenon and they had fused together. It was always loud, with the ringing of hammers hitting metal, the whirring of machinery, or the rock music that Beckendorf sometimes blasted over the speakers. The columns were soot stained, the marble dented and slashed, like too many campers had used them to test out new weapons. At the far end, a water wheel spun the bronze gears that created a rough electricity network, powering the drills and overhead lights, plus the small computer at Beckendorf's work station.

Now, just after lunch, the forge was empty, except for Beckendorf at his station, and Leo and Piper, talking quietly as the Rolling Stones played over head.

Leo listened intently as Piper explained her vision to him and Annabeth's plan to get Tantalus to allow a quest, his fingers restlessly _tap_ - _tap_ -tapping on the stone counter in front of him all the while. He wished he could work on his defense prototype, but he knew Piper needed his attention more.

When she had finished, Leo was silent for a beat, before asking, "But what are we going to do if we don't know where it is? The Triangle, is, like, half a million square miles. We don't have the time to just wander out looking for that one island."

"I know," Piper groaned, biting her lip. "It's not like Katoptris has GPS."

"GPS?"

Leo looked up to see Beckendorf, leaning half out of his battered office chair. "Listen," he said, "I can kinda hear everything you're saying, sorry, but I've been working on something that might help you guys."

"Yeah, man," Leo said. "Show us what you got." Knowing his brother, it had to be good.

With a soft smile that constituted a grin for him, Beckendorf got up out of his chair, moving quickly across the forge toward the locked cabinets that lined the back wall. He squatted down to the very bottom locker, his knees cracking a bit as he did, and spun the combination lock, the door popping open almost instantaneously. He drew out a shield- it didn't look like anything special, but Leo knew better than to underestimate Beckendorf's inventions.

Beckendorf beckoned them outside, into the scorched grass in front of the forge. "It needs natural light to work. There's still a few kinks in it- clouds tend to get in the way- oh, lemme grab my laptop-"

After a few minutes of typing on the laptop and positioning the shield so it caught the light _just so_ , Beckendorf drew a USB cable out of his pocket and plugged the free end into a tiny port Leo hadn't noticed on the rim of the shield, before connecting it to the computer. "Okay, so this is supposed to show you everything under natural light. Basically the magic version of Google Streetview, except it's live. And if I do _this-_ " he typed a command into the laptop, squinting in the sunlight "-I might have to put this on a Paperwhite, this thing zaps the charge badly enough already without having to turn the brightness all the way up. Anyway, the shield shows us _that_." He pressed enter, and Leo and Piper leaned forward as the shield shimmered, showing a brief vision of Camp Half-Blood from above before the image whirled, zooming outward and relocating, until it showed a patch of the ocean, miniscule islands dotting the seascape.

"The Sea of Monsters," Piper breathed, so quiet that Leo almost didn't hear her.

Beckendorf nodded, pleased. "Yup." He pointed to a spot on the edge of the triangle. "See, here are Charybdis and Scylla, the sea monsters that guard the entrance. You can't avoid them, the Clashing Rocks are a no-go."

"What did they do again?" The names sounded vaguely familiar to Leo- Annabeth might have mentioned them.

"Charybdis is a massive whirlpool, Scylla reaches down and steals people from the ship to eat," Piper said. "Even if everyone is below decks, she'll just pick up the entire ship, so. No getting around that."

Beckendorf nodded as he typed another command. "Okay, here's basically the only other not-completely-hostile island we for sure know the location, one of Dad's forges."

"Cool."

"There are some magic islands in the Sea, like Circe's and Ogygia, as well as the Sirens', that just sort of wander around, never in the same place. They won't show up on a map, too much magic."

"Wait. Isn't all of this from the _Odyssey_?" Piper asked, squinting down at the islands dotting the Sea of Monsters.

Beckendorf nodded.

Piper's eyes darted from the shield to her dagger, her brow squishing into what Leo recognized as her thinking face. "Wasn't there. . . Wasn't there a cyclops island too? Something about Nobody and an eye?"

"He poked out the cyclops Polyphemus' eye with a hot stick."

"Fuckin' metal," Leo muttered.

"Is that island on the map?" Piper asked, ignoring him.

"Uh. . ." Beckendorf typed on his laptop, and the picture on the shield whirled, showing a spit of sand littered with bones, a craggy rock of an island, a landscape dotted with sheep, a group of women suntanning on a beach. . .

"Wait! Go back, go back." Piper said, staring as Beckendorf reoriented the image. "There, the sheep."

Tentatively, she picked up the shield and pinched at the screen like she would with a regular tablet, and the image zoomed out a little to show the field, dotted with sheep, and a rough path that led away from the flock, towards a chasm that plunged down into the water below. Piper swiped at the image, and it tilted to show an oak tree.

Something gold glittered in its branches.

"There!" Piper said excitedly. "That's it! The Golden Fleece."

Beckendorf tapped his keyboard. "Coordinates are 30 degrees, 31 minutes north, 75 degrees, 12 minutes west."

Leo felt a grin splitting across his face. "We got it." He clapped Beckendorf on the back; it was like hitting a brick wall. "Nice job, man."

"No problem. You owe me some work time, though."

"No problem," Leo echoed back. Beside him, Piper scrambled to her feet. "I gotta go tell Annabeth," she said, rushing off toward the arena, her hair braids and feathers streaming out behind her.

Leo got up more slowly, picking up the shield and following Beckendorf back to the lockers, where they stored the tech away. "What else you got in here?" asked Leo, eyeing the lockers. Some were hanging open, empty, and others had names taped on, scrawled in the familiar script of his siblings. Many of the locked ones, however, were blank- meaning they were Beckendorf's, or at least something that belonged to Cabin Nine.

Beckendorf smirked. "Cool stuff," was all he said.

"Yeah? Like what?"

Beckendorf paused for a moment, before saying, "Besides my own stuff, we got some schematics and gadgets left over from other Cabin Nine-ers. Stuff from before the Civil War, even. And stuff to defend the camp before Thalia came along."

"Any of it still good? I mean, if this quest thing doesn't pan out, is there anything we can do?"

"Well, a lot of these projects require a lot of resources and time, which we don't have. But there's one. . . maybe." He reached over to a battered locker on the far end and spun the combination to open it. He pulled out a sheath of papers, old and off color, and shuffled through them. "There's this old automaton made in the fifties. A golden dragon. Thing went haywire after a few decades and ran off, but it should still be on camp grounds. I've got the schematics here. . ." He tugged out one crumbling blueprint and handed it to Leo before shoving the rest back into the locker. "We find that, it would just need new wiring and upkeep. Cleaning, probably, and programming. But it's already built and automated."

"Find the Golden Fleece, find the Golden Dragon," Leo muttered as he spread out the blueprint at his workstation and cranked his speakers to play Girl In a Coma. "Anything, I dunno, a nice silver? Wrought iron?"

.

"We need a quest! We need a quest!"

Nico di Angelo sat quietly in the back row of the amphitheater, the stone steps cool beneath his crossed legs. The fire burned brighter as the campers chanted, casting strange shadows on Annabeth and Tantalus, who were closest to it. Piper McLean stood nearby, ready to support her friend.

"WE NEED A QUEST! WE NEED A QUEST!"

"Fine!" Tantalus yelled. Even from his spot in the back, Nico could see how angry he was. "You brats want a quest?"

"YES!"

"Very well. I shall authorize a champion to undertake this perilous journey, to retrieve the Golden Fleece and bring it back to camp. Or die trying."

Nico could see Annabeth relax slightly. He knew how she must have felt, not being able to do anything to help her dying friend.

 _Or her dying soulmate_ , a voice whispered in his head, but Nico ignored it.  
"The champion," Tantalus continued below. "The champion should be one who has earned the camp's respect, who has proven resourceful in the chariot races and in defense of the camp. _You_ shall lead this quest, Clarisse!"

Clarisse la Rue stood from her spot as the leader of the Ares cabin, her face aglow with surprise and excitement and pride. "I accept this quest!"

Annabeth and Piper protested, Piper's charmspeak - whether she was doing it on purpose or not, Nico couldn't tell - swayed the crowd, and the Athena cabin began to shout their objections. The Ares campers shouted over them, pelting Piper and Annabeth with marshmallows. Leo Valdez threw a flaming one back at Clarisse's brother Sherman, and the Apollo campers nearby returned fire, some Aphrodite girls squealing as they darted under the sticky ammunition.

Nico ducked a wayward s'more as the sing-a-long devolved into a food fight.

Tantalus made a weak grab for a flying s'more before shouting for silence, his voice angry and awful and full of thwarted evil. "Silence, you brats!"

Nico didn't need to see anymore. Piper could charmspeak all she wanted, but Tantalus had made up his mind. Clarisse wouldn't let go of this opportunity to prove herself.

He felt for the shadows behind him, and Nico slipped back into cool, familiar darkness.

.

Annabeth plunked down in the grass, running her fingers through the blades; she wiped her fingers, wet from dew, on her jeans and stared out over Long Island Sound.

She wanted _so_ badly to go on that quest. To get off her ass and do _something_.

Annabeth never seemed to be able to help anyone. She hadn't been there for Thalia the night she died, she hadn't realized what a bad path Luke was on until it was too late, and Percy. . .

Well.

Tentatively, she glanced over at the water lilies that bobbed peacefully in the current. Even now, sick and withering, the wilting blossoms were beautiful, almost luminous. If it were any other flower, she would have pressed it into a book. But stealing a lily from something that used to be human, that used to be her soulmate, whatever that meant. . . she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Annabeth had never known Percy Jackson. She couldn't mourn a person she never knew, not like she knew Thalia. Sometimes it felt like the other campers expected her to burst into tears whenever they mentioned the deteriorated state of his plant. But it was Thalia's yellow pine needles and the oozing hole in her trunk that cut deeper.

Luke had known how she felt about them: Thalia Grace and Percy Jackson. Or rather, what she didn't feel. The water lilies lacked the sting, the twist of the knife, that the pine tree did. Her soulmate's death would be a tragedy, yes, but it was clean. Impersonal. And Luke and Annabeth both had loved Thalia.

Annabeth breathed in the salty air, listened to the crickets and the sound of the waves on the shore. The wind rustled through her hair. Overhead, she could see the constellation Andromeda, the stars glittering like tiny gemstones. The moon was almost full.

Nearby, there was a gurgle of water, and Annabeth jumped, hand flashing toward the bronze knife in her belt.

Eyes blinked at her from under a lily pad, and Annabeth relaxed; just a nereid. She hadn't seen one before; she made a point to avoid this spot, but Chiron had mentioned that the creatures of the sea looked after the son of their god.

The nereid blinked again, her murky green eyes huge, reflecting the moonlight. She hummed, deep in her throat, and vanished back into the water.

Annabeth wondered if the anemoi ever visited Thalia, maybe swirling through the upper boughs of the pine tree.

Probably not.

Annabeth turned back to the Sound.

Another gurgle, followed by a splash.

Annabeth glanced back over to see two pairs of eyes gleaming in the darkness of the water; the green eyed one had been joined by another nereid, her eyes a pretty blue.

The blue eyes peered at Annabeth for a moment. Then a slightly webbed hand reached up and gently pushed the green lily pads out of the way so she could move closer to the grass where Annabeth was sitting.

Annabeth's hand tightened on her dagger.

The sea nymph emerged slowly from the water, first her face, serene and lovely, and dark hair swirling down her back, over her shoulders. A neck surfaced, wrapped in bits of twine and fishing net, a sea-themed DIY choker dotted with sea glass and bits of coral. Her torso came next, her breasts clearly visibly beneath the soaked sheer garment she was wearing; she was so pale she almost glowed. She stopped there, half out of the water where she lived, and regarded Annabeth for a moment.

Annabeth could feel her mouth hanging open, and she shut it quickly, her teeth clicking together. This was the most beautiful woman - creature - she had ever seen, and suddenly she felt very conscious of her ratty t-shirt and jeans, her hair probably askew and looking atrocious. She hoped there wasn't any marshmallow in it from earlier, but that was probably too much to hope for.

Slowly, the nereid reached up around her own neck and disentangled a cord, cupping it in her hands for a moment before offering it out to Annabeth. Dangling from the wet string was a tiny charm shaped like a ship's wheel, a piece of bright red coral shimmering in its center ring.

Annabeth hesitated, but the nymph gave her a sweet, close-lipped smile and held her hand out a little farther.

Still not letting go of her dagger, Annabeth reached over with her left hand and took the charm quickly out of the sea spirit's hand.

It was slightly damp, but the wood of the charm wasn't rotten or foul. The nereid blinked expectantly at Annabeth, before reaching up to tap another of her own necklaces.

 _Oh_.

Annabeth hurriedly set aside her dagger, though keeping it closeby, and reached up to take off her camp necklace, riddled with its own eclectic collection of beads and charms and the one single man's ring. She slipped on the ship's wheel onto the leather cord and quickly clasped it back around her neck.

The sea nymph smiled again, clearly pleased. She slipped back into the water, making barely any ripples.

"Thank you," Annabeth whispered. Breathing in, she realized she was on the brink of tears. "Thank you," she called again, louder this time, her voice cracking.

She took another deep breath before stumbling up from the grass, leaping clumsily over the creek before staggering off down the beach. With shaking fingers, she tucked her dagger back into its sheath permanently affixed to her waist.

Annabeth shuffled through the sand, feeling the grit between her toes and in her sandals. In the distance, she could see the lights from the cabins.

She wasn't supposed to be out so late, but she hadn't been able to stand the sympathetic looks on her siblings' faces, Malcolm talking about the possibility of drawing up another patrol schedule and maybe researching archaic cures for poison. It was all useless.

Restless, she wandered closer to the waves to feel the water between her toes, washing away the sand. She couldn't go anywhere, and she didn't want to go back to Cabin Six; her chest still felt tight from the nereid. Hang around here too long and the harpies would catch her scent.

Annabeth took a deep breath. The smell of the ocean was calming, the cool sea breeze almost like a gentle hug. Closing her eyes, she relaxed her shoulders and breathed like she was in the yoga class taught every other week by a serene dryad.

 _Breathe in one, two, three, four. . . Breathe out one, two, three, four, five. . ._

"Beautiful night, isn't it?"

Annabeth sucked in a breath, eyes flying open. In one lightning movement, she stepped away from the source of the voice and whirled, dagger up in a defensive position.

Standing right next to her was a man, smiling amiably at her. His running shorts and New York Marathon t-shirt rustled in the wind, his salt-and-pepper hair mused slightly. He was slim and fit, a man who did a lot of moving.

Annabeth quickly sheathed her dagger and sank into a bow. "Lord Hermes."

Hermes acknowledged her with a swift nod, his gaze quickly going back to the stars. He sucked in a breath of air and sighed happily. "So nice out here. So peaceful and qui-"

A cell phone rang. Hermes let out a small, exasperated groan and tugged what Annabeth knew must be the caduceus out of his pants pocket, the writhing green snakes the size of earthworms. Hermes glanced at the display and frowned. "I've gotta take this, just a second."

Annabeth glanced around the beach, desperately trying to not listen in on Hermes' one-sided conversation. _What was he_ doing _here_?

"Now," said Hermes, shoving the caduceus back into his pocket. "Sorry about that. Back to peace and quiet." And with that, he sat down on the sand, legs crossed, and stared up at the night sky, looking for all the world like a jogger who had stopped to enjoy the stars.

Annabeth hesitated a moment before sitting down gingerly next to the god, wondering, briefly, what sort of visitor she'd have next. Something unpleasant, probably.

The seconds ticked by, and Annabeth shifted uncomfortably, tucking her legs underneath her. "Pardon me, Lord Hermes," she began. "But was there something you wanted to tell me, or is this just a. . ."

"Or am I just passing through? Oh, no, I came to talk to you. What are you going to do about the quest?

"I- um. . . Well-"

 _I have Demeter on line two_ , a slightly muffled voice piped from the god's pocket. One of the snakes, Annabeth supposed.

"Not now, Martha," said Hermes, looking slightly irritated. "Tell her I'm in a meeting and will call her back."

 _She's not going to like that. You_ know _what happened last time_.

"I'm trying to have a conversation!" Hermes snapped. He took a breath, and Annabeth wondered if he ever did yoga. "I apologise, Annabeth. Ever since the telegraph and that Alexander Graham Bell, I haven't had a break in centuries."

"Sounds. . . tough?"

"It is, it truly is," Hermes sniffed. "Thank you for saying so. Now, what are you going to do about the quest?"

Annabeth chewed her lip. "It's Clarisse's quest, she's. . . She'll get it done, and I'm not allowed to go. Plus, it's not like I can just take the bus into the Sea of Monsters."

"No, no, quests are never supposed to be easy." Hermes paused, and Annabeth remembered the long scar on Luke's cheek from his own, failed quest. "But would that stop you?"

"No," Annabeth admitted. "I want to save Thalia and the Camp."

Hermes hummed to himself. "You know, there once was a little boy-"

 _Oh, here we go_ , muttered another, slightly deeper voice from his pocket; the other one - Martha - quickly shushed it.

"There once was a little boy," Hermes repeated, slightly louder. "Much younger than you. A very curious, adventurous little boy. So one day, while his mother was busy, he stole some of Apollo's sacred cattle, not even a dozen of them, really. Not a big deal."

Annabeth glanced away from Hermes so he wouldn't see the incredulous face she was making.

"And anyway," he continued, "The little boy gave Apollo a certain instrument called a lyre to make up for it, and Apollo liked its music so much that he wasn't angry anymore."

"So you want me to go on the quest?"

Hermes smiled at her, his eyes twinkling mischievously, and Annabeth felt a momentary pang; he really did look like Luke. He took his caduceus/cell phone back out of his pocket. "Original form, please."

Annabeth watched as the caduceus grew, glowing blue and stretching from its small size into a three-foot staff, dove wings sprouting from its top. The snakes, bright green and massive, writhed along the staff, coiling together into the familiar symbol of Hermes, god of thieves and travellers.

 _Oh, that feels much better_ , said one of the snakes. _I haven't stretched in weeks._

 _Got any rats_? asked the other.

"Quiet now, George," Hermes said. "Martha, the first package, if you would be so kind?"

The first snake opened her mouth wide, reminded Annabeth of the pythons in the nature documentaries she had watched with Chiron, almost as wide as Annabeth's arm, and vomited up a metal cannister. Annabeth caught it before it could it the sand, and almost dropped it in surprise; one side was blisteringly hot, and the other freezing cold. Its sides were enameled in scenes of Hercules' adventures.

"Part of a collector's set," Hermes mused. " _Hercules Busts Heads_ , first season, before Hephaestus TV became all that awful reality programming, I can't take another rerun of _The Housewives of Olympus_. Don't open it all at once, it holds the four winds. Useful for a speedy getaway. Only use it a little at a time, the winds aren't exactly homebodies. Do be careful with it."

"Yessir," Annabeth said quickly, clutching the thermos tightly, even if one side burned her hand. "Thank you, this is very generous of you."

Hermes waved his hand dismissively. "Nonsense, it would be worth much more if I had the whole lunchbox."

 _And if it hadn't been in Martha's mouth_ , snickered one of the snakes.

 _Oh, I'll get you for that George!_ Martha snapped, beginning to chase him around the staff.

"Oh, hold still, you two," Hermes said.

 _She's touching me_ , complained George.

Hermes made an exasperated sound. "You're intertwined, George, get over it. Please give me the second gift."

"Second gift?" Annabeth repeated.

George opened his mouth and quickly spat out a small plastic bottle. Annabeth snatched it up from the beach and wiped away the sand to read the label. One-A-Day Vitamins for Demigods! it proclaimed. Then, in smaller print: Apollo Endorsed!

"There we go." Hermes beamed at her, pleased. "Everything you need to feel yourself again. They're strong though, so use them sparingly."

Hermes stood, dusting sand from his pants. "I trust you'll put these to good use?"

"Yes, I. . ." Annabeth hesitated. "Lord Hermes, this is very kind of you, but why are you helping me?"

Hermes smiled, suddenly a little melancholy. "You can save a lot of people on this quest, Annabeth. Not just Thalia and the camp."

"Sir?"

"If there's one thing I've learned, you don't give up on family. Understand?"

 _Oh_. That was a goal Annabeth had given up when Thalia's tree had been poisoned, but. . . "I'll do my best, my lord."

"Good. Now I must be going. And you should to, there's no time to lose. Your friends should be here any second now." He tapped the top of the caduceus and it shrunk back into a cell phone.

Annabeth blinked, looking around at the beach. "Wait! How am I supposed to get there?"

"Hmm? Oh, well, your soulmate was poisoned too, wasn't he? I imagine his father would be more than willing to give you a helping hand if you asked nicely, he's been very upset about this ugly business."

"What-"

 _You have sixty calls_ -

And Hermes was gone.

In his place were three large yellow duffel bags.

"Annabeth!"

She turned to see Piper scampering across the dunes, hastily dressed, dagger clutched in one hand. Leo wasn't far behind her.

Panting slightly, Piper skidded to a stop. "What's happened, I heard you yelling-"

"Me too," added Leo as he reached them. He paused, catching sight of the thermos and pill bottle clutched in Annabeth's hand, the duffel bags on the beach. "What are those?"

Annabeth felt her spine straighten, the enormity of what just happened crashing down on her, and she realized that she was grinning.

"We got a quest."


	3. III: Enter the Cyclops

"A quest?" Piper repeated. "But Tantalus-"

"Screw Tantalus," Annabeth said. For the first time in a long time, she felt rejuvenated. With a _purpose_. "We have to do this. Besides-" she gestured to the yellow duffel bags sitting in the sand beside her "-I basically just got the all-clear from Hermes himself." She explained what Hermes had told her about, the quest and asking the sea god for help.

"Alright," Leo said. He was grinning, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "When do we leave?"

"Wait a sec-" Piper interjected, but Annabeth ignored her friend. "Right fuckin' now." She felt her confidence flicker a bit: praying had never been a strong suit of Annabeth's. "As soon as I ask Poseidon for a ride."

"Annabeth," Piper said slowly, putting power behind her words. "Slow down a little. Are you sure about this?"

"Oh, come on." Leo rolled his eyes. "Little Miss I'm-Gonna-Steal-This-Car-Don't-You-Dare-Try-And-Stop-Me wants to slow down?"

Piper's cheeks went rosey. "Shut up, Leo. I'm as much for rule-breaking as much as the next guy, but this isn't like my stupid pleas for attention. I'm just saying that we need a plan. Right, Annabeth?"

"I have a plan," said Annabeth. "We're going to ask Poseidon to help us get out of the camp and then we go from there."

"That's-"

"Listen, Piper." Annabeth strode across the sand toward Piper until she stood only a foot in front of her. "Normally, I'd totally agree with you. I'm all about plans and preparation. But right now, we don't have time. I have to do this. Okay?" She searched the ever-changing eyes of her friend, wide and shining in the moonlight. "Okay?" Annabeth repeated.

Piper held eye contact for only a moment before breaking away and nodding. "Okay."

Annabeth spun back toward the water. "Okay." She mouthed the word again as the she walked back into the surf so the water lapped against her sandals. She knelt, the knees of her jeans pressed into the sand and the water, cold and salty, sunk into her clothes.

"Hello," she murmured softly. The sound of the waves grew a little louder, and a bit of sea foam drifted toward her. "My Lord Poseidon, I beg for your help on this quest. Um. . . Hermes said you would help us get to the Sea of Monsters. We want to save the camp and Thalia and. . . your son. So please help us. That would be- really nice."

Annabeth figured she should quit while she was ahead, and she straightened up out of the surf and dusted the wet sand off her jeans. She studied the waves and the distant horizon for anything that might have been of use- a boat, probably, or-

Three white lines of surf appeared in the water about a hundred yards out, ripping through the waves toward them. They tore through the breaking waves on the shore and emerged onto the sand, pulling themselves up with huge hooves. Annabeth and Piper had to scramble back in order not to get soaked by the torrent of water that accompanied their arrival.

"Oh," Piper whispered behind Annabeth. "They're gorgeous."

Annabeth could only nod in agreement. The hippocampi were stunning, with their pearly white manes and shimmering scales. Rainbow fish tails twitched in the waves.

"Yes!" A voice called from the largest of the hippocampi. "Fish ponies are very pretty!"

"What-" Annabeth heard Piper mutter, and then she saw him. It.

A Cyclops was grinning down at her from the big hippocampus. "Hello! I am Tyson."

In a second, Annabeth had her dagger out and pointed at the monster. The hippocampus' eyes rolled at the sight of the Celestial Bronze blade, and it reared slightly out of the sea. The Cyclops patted it consolingly. "It's okay, Rainbow." It frowned at Annabeth. "You're scaring her."

" _I'm_ scaring _her_?" Since when could a Cyclops _have conversations_ , anyway?

"Yes," it said. "She doesn't like knives. We're here to help you."

" _What_."

The Cyclops stepped down off the hippocampus, and Annabeth scrambled a few steps back, keeping her dagger up. A few feet away, Piper had her dagger out too, and Leo was holding up a fist full of fire.

The Cyclops eyed her, looking irritated. Giving her a wide berth, he stepped around her toward the duffel bags. "Daddy sent me."

"'Daddy?' Who's your dad?" Piper demanded from its other side.

It blinked his one eye at Piper. Instead of answering, it simply pointed toward the sea.

"Wha- _Poseidon_ is your father?"

"Yes. I asked Daddy to let me help my brother."

It took Annabeth a moment to follow its meaning. "You mean- Percy Jackson?"

The Cyclops sniffed, its single eye suddenly dewy. "Yes. Percy was my favorite brother! Brought me peanut butter sandwiches. I want to help him."

Annabeth decided to ignore the part where her deceased soulmate was a Cyclops-lover. "You can't go with us."

The monster frowned at her. "Percy was my brother," it repeated. "If I do not go, you do not go."

" _But-_ "

"I think he'll be okay," Leo interrupted, his fist lowered and fire extinguished. At Annabeth's incredulous look, he said, "Beckendorf told me about the undersea forges. The Cyclops work as part of Poseidon's army, building weapons and fortifications. They're master blacksmiths."

The Cyclops- _Tyson_ -beamed at him. "Yes! I make weapons. Good ones, too."

Leo smiled at it. "Yeah. You said your name was Tyson, right? You really want to go on this quest? It will be dangerous. You might have to fight another one of your brothers, the Cyclops Polyphemus. You sure you're up to it?"

The Cyclops nodded emphatically. "I do not know Polyphemus, but he is a bad brother. Never gave me or the others peanut butter sandwiches! Not like Percy."

"Okay," Leo continued. "But I think before you go, you have to promise these guys that you're really going to try to help them. They've never met a Cyclops as nice as you before."

"Yes! I promise!"

Annabeth glared at Leo. "You can't be serious." She had hated Cyclopes since, well, Thalia died.

"I think- we could give him a chance," Piper spoke up. Her dagger was sheathed. "And it's not like we can't handle a single Cyclops."

"But-"

"Annabeth," Piper said firmly. "You just said that we're doing this quest, no matter what. Whether we like it or not, to do this quest, we need the Cyclops. Tyson."

Annabeth felt her shoulders slump. "Alright," she relented. "It can come."

"Yay!" The Cyclops cheered. It beamed at her with its single calf brown eye. "You will not regret this. I know the sea. And Rainbow will help too!"

At the sound of her name, the hippocampus snorted slightly. The Cyclops scooped up the duffel bags and stuffed them into her massive saddle bags. "We must go now, or our ride will leave us behind."

Before Annabeth could say that she had thought that the hippocampi were their ride, Leo said, "If it's cool with you guys, I think I'll stay here."

"What?" Piper stopped short. "Why?"

"Beckendorf told me about this thing- I think it could help protect the camp. And besides, quests are supposed to be in groups of three, right? With him around, you don't need me. And I'm the fire guy, I'd be less than useless at sea."

"Leo," Piper said. "Are you sure?"

Leo nodded, scuffing his sneakers in the sand. "Yeah. I gotta stay. You guys should get moving."

As Piper leaned in for a hug, Annabeth walked around to one of the smaller hippocampi. Gingerly, remembering how she saddled the Pegasi, she put one foot into the stirrup and swung her other leg over. Only a few feet away, the Cyclops watched as Piper too mounted her hippocampus. "Okay!" it said. "Giddy up, Rainbow!"

At the command, Rainbow slid backward into the water before wheeling around and taking off across the water. The smaller two followed, and Annabeth had to snatch hold of the hippocampus' mane to keep from flying off.

The hippocampi were wickedly fast, blasting through the waves and into the Long Island Sound. Annabeth blinked against the wind whipping into her face and hair, glancing back at Leo and Camp Half-Blood before facing forward again. Droplets of salt water stung her eyes, and she hunched into the white mane of her hippocampus for shelter. The next time she looked back, the beach had vanished into the night.

Ahead of her, the Cyclops pointed at a distant white shape, emerging out of the sea mist. "There!" it called back to her. "Our ride!"

As the hippocampi drew closer, the white shape grew more defined until Annabeth could see a cruise ship, _Princess Andromeda_ painted in curling letters on its bow. The cruise ship loomed above them as they approached, at least ten stories high. At the bow, the ship's massive masthead hung: a figure of a woman dressed in an Ancient Greek chiton, chained to the ship and illuminated by spotlights.

It would have been pretty if she didn't look so terrified, her face twisted into a grotesque expression of fear.

"How do we get aboard?" Annabeth yelled, trying her best to be heard over the crash of the waves. The Cyclops said nothing, but the hippocampi zipped around the side of the ship, coming to a stop in front of a service ladder riveted into the side of the ship's hull.

Annabeth stood up, doing her best to balance on the hippocampus' back as it bobbed in the current, and grabbed hold of the bottom rung.

As Annabeth climbed, she glanced down enough the see that Piper had copied her, and their hippocampi had disappeared below the surface of the water. The Cyclops was the last the board the ship, as it slung the duffel bags Hermes had given them over its shoulders and said goodbye to its hippocampus. It, too, vanished with a sad, watery whinny.

The ladder finally ended on a deserted maintenance deck, and Annabeth hoisted herself over the railing. Bright yellow lifeboats hung from hooks on the deck's ceiling.

When Piper and the monster had reached the deck, Annabeth walked quickly down the deck until she reached a set of double doors. Annabeth tugged on the handle. Locked.

Sighing, she unsheathed her dagger and got to work on the door. She hadn't had much practice picking locks, and it was especially cumbersome with only her dagger, but she got it open after a fair bit of cursing that made the Cyclops blush.

Now that they were away from camp, the Mist had crept forward to shield the Cyclop's face; Annabeth found herself struggling to look it in the eye, having to concentrate hard to see just the single eye instead of two.

The halls of the cruise ship were strangely empty. The lido deck was deserted. No food either, which was too bad. The shops in the promenade were locked up tight, iron grills separating passersby from the merchandise. Even the bars were untenanted. The halls lined with the passengers' cabins were completely silent. All the lights were on, making the ship, if possible, even more creepy.

"Is it a ghost ship?" Piper asked in a whisper, even after they had wandered through half the ship and met no one.

"No," the Cyclops murmured back. "Smells bad."

"I don't smell anything," Annabeth said, frowning.

"I have good sense of smell," the Cyclops insisted. "Percy told me Cyclops are like satyrs. We smell monsters and bad things."

Biting back a sharp retort, Annabeth asked, "Well, what do you smell?"

"Something bad."

"Well that clears that up."

They had reached another set of doors, and Piper pushed them open. They wandered through what must have been the spa: rainforest sounds played softly over the speakers, and they passed signs for the sauna, salon, and treatment rooms. Reaching the end of the hallway, a glass wall showed a small pool, its water glowing eerily and sloshing with the movement of the ship.

"Hmm," Piper said, her voice slightly stronger. "I'm ready to stop wandering around the creepiest motherfuckin' ship I've ever seen. I don't even think a movie crew could do this justice. Ooh, this would be a cool idea for a movie."

Though Annabeth agreed, she refrained from saying so. She had the eerie feeling that she was being watched. Exhausted from the days' events (had Piper brought the idea of the Golden Fleece to her only yesterday?), she said, "We need to find somewhere to sleep."

Piper and the Cyclops followed Annabeth back down several flights of ornate stairs and down a few hallways, lined with silent cabin doors, until they found an empty suite on the ninth level, its door hanging open and lights on as if waiting for them.

Piper poked at a box of pretty chocolates sitting on the table in the room, along with a chilled bottle of champagne and a card that read _Welcome aboard the Princess Andromeda! Enjoy your cruise!_

"We shouldn't touch that," Annabeth said. Piper's face fell, but she nodded her understanding. "In fact, don't eat or drink anything from the ship," Annabeth added. "Understand, Cyclops?"

The monster looked a little hurt. "My name is Tyson."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Fine. Tyson. Don't eat or drink anything, okay? And you can sleep next door."

Tyson looked slightly appeased. "Alright." It set the duffel bags down on the king-sized bed. Piper unzipped one and looked pleased to find her iPod (without cellular capabilities, of course). In hers, Annabeth found her own invisibility cap and had to restrain herself from burying her nose in its rough cloth. Even Tyson pulled out a small oilcloth from its appointed bag and looked much happier. Aside from these small comfort items, Hermes had packed extra clothes, camp rations, a baggy filled with mortal money, a pouch of golden drachmas, and toiletries. Annabeth tucked the thermos with the four winds, still oddly hot to the touch on one side and icy cold on the other, and the vitamins into her bag.

Tyson vanished into the adjoining cabin, and Annabeth and Piper changed into the soft PJs Hermes had given them and shared the queen bed.

Annabeth allowed herself to curl up close to Piper, who, despite everything that had happened and how sweaty and salt-specked Annabeth was, smelled pleasantly of jasmine.

With the lights out, they lay there in silence, listening to the distant humming of the ship's engines. But there was something else, too. Annabeth could swear that someone was whispering in the hallway outside the room. Many different voices, all of them murmuring indistinctly.

Moonlight filtered in through the porthole so Annabeth could see that Piper's eyes were still wide open, her body tense.

"Do you hear them too?" Annabeth whispered.

Piper nodded.

They lay there together for what felt like a long time, listening. Until Piper stirred slightly. "One of us should get some sleep."  
Annabeth furrowed her brow, giving her a puzzled look, but Piper only said, her words laced with power and charm, " _Sleep_ , Annabeth. Do not have dreams."

And Annabeth fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.


	4. IV: The Son of Hermes Monologues

After an uneasy sleep, Piper woke up to a loud, sharp whistle, and a far too chipper Australian accent: "Good morning, passengers! We'll be at sea all day today. Excellent weather for the poolside mambo party! Don't forget million dollar bingo in the Kraken lounge at one o'clock, and for our _special guests_ , disemboweling practice on the Promenade!"

"'Disemboweling practice?'" Piper echoed. Beside her, Annabeth was still fast asleep. Tyson opened the adjoining door to his room and poked his head in, a confused expression on his usually placid face. "What did the happy man say?"

"I dunno, Tyson," Piper said. She had decided that she liked the Cyclops; Leo said that he would be helpful, and that was good enough for her. And Tyson seemed like a big ol' sweetie pie. "Why don't you get dressed while I wake Annabeth up? We'll come get you when we're ready."

"Okay." As Tyson shut the door again, Piper shook Annabeth softly, putting the familiar power into her words. " _Wake up_."

Annabeth's eyes blinked open, and she sat up. Her braid, so neat when they had gone to bed, had twisted itself into a rat's nest overnight. She looked around, getting her bearings, before focusing back on Piper. "Did you charmspeak me into falling asleep?"

Sheepish, Piper nodded. She shuffled out of the bed and tugged open her designated duffel bag. "Yeah, I figured out that I can do that one night when one of my sisters would just not shut up. The next morning we figured out that I have to wake them up, too, or they'll just keep sleeping." She unearthed a little bottle of shower gel and headed for the tiny bathroom. "I'm gonna take a quick shower, 'kay?"

After they had both showered and collected Tyson, they ventured out of their cabins to find that the _Princess Andromeda_ wasn't as deserted as it had looked the night before. On deck, senior citizens wobbled on their walkers as they made their way to breakfast; a father steered his kids in the direction of the pool. Crew members strolled by, tipping their little hats at the passengers.

Nobody seemed to notice their little band of stowaways, and the ship was not as eerily still as it had been in the dark, but there was something . . .off with the passengers.

As the family of swimmers drifted past Piper, she heard the father tell his kids, "We are on a cruise. We are having fun."

"Yes," his children chorused back, their voices monotone and their speech stilted. "We are having a blast. We will swim in the pool."

A crew member tipped his hat to Annabeth. Unlike the swimmers, his voice was friendly, but his eyes had a glazed-over look that didn't sit well with Piper. "Good morning. We are all enjoying ourselves aboard the _Princess Andromeda_. Have a nice day." He wandered off again.

"This is weird," Annabeth murmured. "It's like they're all in some sort of trance."

Piper nodded. "Reminds me of the kids working the night shifts at the twenty four hour convenience stores in LA," she muttered. "Complete zombies." She and Tyson trailed behind Annabeth as they climbed the stairs leading into the lido deck, where the breakfast buffet was in full swing. Piper had just narrowly avoided a dazed chef balancing a huge tray of pastries when she saw the first monster.

A hellhound, Piper thought, though she hadn't seen one in person before. It was the size of a grizzly bear, its muzzle dipped into a vat of scrambled eggs. She looked around; Annabeth and Tyson had stopped too, staring at it. But they were the only ones. None of the passengers or crew members seemed to notice it. A middle aged couple was standing placidly behind the beast, waiting for their turn with the scrambled eggs.

"Not hungry anymore," Tyson muttered.

Piper agreed wholeheartedly, but before she could say anything, a reptilian voice sounded from the nearby elevator lobby. "Ssssix more joined yesssterday."

Annabeth grabbed her arm and dragged her into the nearby ladies' room; Piper just barely managed to tug Tyson along with her before _something_ slithered along the carpet alongside the bathroom.

Another voice, snakelike and raspy, hissed, "Yesss. He drawsss them. Sssoon we will be ssstrong."

They slithered on into the buffet, making a chilling sound that PIper realized must have been laughter.

"We have to get out of here," Annabeth said. "Now."

"Yes," Tyson agreed. "Smells bad, and the dogs eat all the food. Time to leave."

Before Piper could say that she did very much agree and also what were those things, she heard another voice. Human, but full of emotion, unlike the rest of the ships' mortal passengers and crew. "-only a matter of time. Don't push me on this, Agrius!"

Piper felt Annabeth tense beside her, her lips pinching together in a tight frown.

"I'm not pushing you!" Another voice, deeper and even angrier than the first. "I'm just saying, if this gamble doesn't pay off-"

"It'll pay off," the first voice snarled back. "They'll take the bait. Now, come, we've got to get to the admiralty suite and check on the casket."

Piper and Annabeth listened as the voices receded down the stairs. Tyson shifted from foot to foot. "Leave now?" he whispered. "I could call Rainbow."

"Not yet," Annabeth said. Her face was flushed and angry. "That was Luke Castellan."

"Oh," was the only thing Piper could find to say. "What should we do?"

"We're going to find out just what the hell Luke thinks he's doing, and then, if we can manage it, we're going to drag him back to Mount Olympus in chains."

"Where are we going to find chains?"

Annabeth ignored her. "I could use my invisibility hat."  
Piper shook her head. "It's too dangerous to go alone. I could try to charmspeak the mortals, see if I can get them to wake up, cause a distraction. We could sneak into the admiralty suite then and check things out."

"No, they would just kill the mortals. I hate to say it, but it's probably safest for them like this."

"Well, either we all go, or nobody goes."

"Nobody," Tyson said hopefully. "Please?"

Annabeth lead the way back to their cabin, where Tyson gathered up their duffel bags, carrying the weight with ease. Annabeth put the gifts Hermes had given her into her knapsack, making sure they were at the top of the bag, and shoved her cap into her pocket. Piper swept an eye over the room, making sure they hadn't forgotten anything. "Tyson, are you sure that you can manage those bags by yourself?"

"Don't worry about it," Annabeth said, before Tyson could speak. "Cyclops are strong, the weight's nothing to it."

Piper almost chastised her friend for her treatment of Tyson, but she closed her mouth. A talk about good monsters' rights and Annabeth's biases would have to wait until after they escaped from the ghost ship. Briefly, she pictured a monster's rights rally: Cyclops with their own unique flag and brandishing signs that read "NOBODY discriminates!"

At the elevator bank, Annabeth paused to examine a map of the ship. "He said admiralty suite, right?"

"Yeah," Piper said, hitting the up button.

They followed the helpful ship's maps through the ship, pausing every so often to watch for monsters. Annabeth would scout ahead with her invisibility cap, but most of the passing passengers were glassy eyed zombies.

They climbed higher and higher, toward the back of the ship where the suite was (Piper couldn't remember the nautical terms for it). As Piper and Tyson reached the top of the stairs leading to the thirteenth deck, an invisible Annabeth shoved them across the passageway, into a supply closet with a hiss of "Hide!"

Piper could feel Annabeth gripping her arm hard as they stood stock still in the closet, listening.

"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" said a voice.

His companion laughed. "Yeah, totally awesome."

Annabeth's grip on Piper, is possible, tightened.

The second guy continued, "I hear they got two more coming. They keep arriving at this rate- oh man, no contest!"

As the voices faded from their hearing, Annabeth whipped off her hat. "That was Chris Rodriguez!" she said, her eyes wide. "He- well, I guess you never met, but he was an undetermined in the Hermes cabin.

Piper sucked in a breath. "What's another demigod doing here?"

But she had a bad feeling she already knew the answer.

Annabeth looked just as worried as Piper as she put her hat back on. A second later, the closet door clicked back open.

Piper and Tyson slipped back out into the hallway, padding quietly on the carpet. Piper could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as they got closer to the admiralty suite, a feeling of cold sweeping over her.

As they passed a bank of windows looking over the ship's shopping mall, Piper glanced out. And stopped cold. Tyson paused too, and Piper could feel Annabeth tugging at her, a subtle hint that they should move, for fuck's sake.

"Look," Piper breathed.

Below, in the middle of the Promenade, stood a circle of monsters; a dozen giants, hellhounds, a what looked like serpent women.

"Scythian Dracaenae," Annabeth whispered. "Dragon women."

As they watched, a guy in Greek armor in the middle of the circle began to hack at a straw dummy- one wearing a familiar orange t shirt,

The gathered monsters whooped and hollered as the fighter sliced upward, hacking through the Camp Half-Blood shirt and spilling straw on the polished floor of the mall.

Piper flinched. Annabeth was still and silent, still invisible.

Taking a deep breath, Piper continued down the hallway, swiping her hand through the air to make sure Annabeth came with her. But they'd only gotten a few feet away from the window, towards the sinister looking oak double doors at the end of the hallway, when Tyson, tugged gently on Piper's sleeve. "Stop. Voices inside."

Before Piper could marvel over Tyson's hearing, Annabeth asked, "What do you hear?"

Tyson closed his single eye, evidently concentrating hard. When he spoke again, his voice was barely familiar: the one they'd hear earlier, at the buffet. "-prophecy ourselves. Those fools won't know which way to turn."

His voice changed again, deeper and gruffer to match the original speaker's companion. "You really think the old horseman is gone for good?"

Tyson laughed an unfamiliar laugh. "They can't trust him. Not with the skeletons in his closet. The poisonings were the final straw."

Before he could say anything else, Annabeth broke in, her voice low and angry. "Okay, when I asked what they were saying, I didn't want all this creepiness." When she swept off her hat and became visible, her face was slightly red.

Tyson opened his eye again, puzzled and slightly hurt. "Just listening."

"Keep going," Piper urged, trying to make her voice encouraging. She gave Annabeth a look that hopefully said _Okay whatever you have going on needs to stop_.

Tyson closed his eye. In the deeper voice, he said hissed "Quiet!" Then, in Luke's whisper: "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Right outside."

Piper realized what was going on a second too late. The oak doors banged open, and there was Luke Castellan, flanked by two beefy creatures, their arms wrapped in thick dark fur. Their javelins were pointed straight at Piper and Annabeth.

Luke fulfilled Piper's expectations of what a friend-turned-traitor should look like in every way: handsome, with a chiseled jaw and bright, feverishly blue eyes. His sandy hair was cropped short. He was older than Piper expected, and better dressed. He looked like someone going in for a high end corporate job interview, with dress pants and a button down shirt, its sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

Luke would have been beautiful except for the very picturesque scar making its way down the left side of his face. It marred his features with a nastiness that matched the hard, cold look of his eyes.

He smiled a crooked smile right at Annabeth, ignoring Piper and Tyson. "Well, if it isn't my favorite cousin. Come right in."

Like Luke, the lavish admiralty suite would have been outstandingly gorgeous, with it high windows with a view of the sea and plush furniture and food piled high on the dining table, but for one thing tainting it: the golden sarcophagus sitting on a velvet dais, stealing the warmth from the room. It was carved with gruesome Ancient Greek depictions of burning cities and ancient heroes in their death throes. Just the site of it made a chill go up Piper's spine, and she dug her feet into the deep carpet, unwilling to go any nearer.

Luke Castellan grinned at them, pleased. He sprawled out on one of the couches and spread his hands. "Isn't this nice? Take a seat." He waved a hand and the chairs from the dining table moved into the center of the room.

No one moved. Luke continued on: "And these are my assistants, Agrius and Oreius. The bear twins. Agrius and Oreius, this is my old friend Annabeth." His lips curled into a sneer as he gazed at Piper and Tyson. "But I haven't had the pleasure of knowing her companions."

Piper didn't say anything. She could sense Tyson shifting uneasily behind her.

"Well, if you're shy," Luke hummed. "Have you heard the story of the twins' mother? Aphrodite commanded her to fall in love, but she refused, ran to Artemis for help. She even became one of Artemis' handmaidens. But Aphrodite was determined to have her way, and cursed the young woman to fall in love with a bear. Artemis abandoned her handmaid in disgust. So typical of the gods. They fight and fight, and the ones who get hurt are the humans."

"Enough," Annabeth hissed, breaking off Luke's monologue. Piper could see that her fists were clenched, her face red and furious. "Enough of this bullshit, Luke. You poisoned Thalia's tree!"

Luke's genial mood evaporated. "So what?" he snarled, glowering at Annabeth. His white scar stood out even more on his reddening face.

"' _So what?_ ' So she was your friend! She saved your life! She saved both our lives! How could you dishonor her like-"

"Ha! I didn't dishonor Thalia, the gods did. If she were alive, she'd be with me. They both would!"

"Liar!" Annabeth explained. "You're delusional!"

"Percy wouldn't have helped you," blurted Tyson. His one eye was wide and sad. "Percy was good. He didn't want to hurt people."

Suddenly quiet, Luke turned his focus toward Tyson, who avoided looking at him. "Oh, that's right," he murmured. "Poseidon fathered many Cyclops. He would have been your brother."

Tyson nodded. "Percy protected me," he said, puffing out his chest a little bit. "Even when the others bullied him too."

Luke's face twisted back into a sneer. "Aw, isn't that sweet," he crooned, his voice full of sarcasm. "Annabeth's soulmate, the Cyclops lover! Maybe it's for the best that he's dead, Annabeth, or you would have wound up with this thing as your brother-in-law. Now that would be an insult to Thalia's memory."

Tyson snarled, his giant hands clenched so hard his knuckles were white, but didn't move. Piper bristled, clamping her lips shut in an effort not to say anything.

Annabeth's face was red with fury, and Piper could see that she was losing the battle not to cry. "Luke," she said, her voice clear and strong despite her turmoil. "Your father sent me."

Luke's face went scarlet and he stood up, finally shedding any pretense that this was a simple chat between old friends. "Do. Not. Talk about _him_." He said "him" as if it were a foul word.

Annabeth ignored him. "He got us onto the ship, Luke. More than just finding the Fleece, Luke, your father wanted us to help you."

"'Help me!'" Luke bellowed, so loudly that Piper flinched. "He _abandoned_ me, Annabeth! That's what the gods do! They leave us, their children, to die horrible deaths! Look at Thalia, look at Perseus Jackson! Even you, Annabeth, your mother left you to be raised by a mortal woman who hated you."

He turned away, looking to the golden sarcophagus. "More and more half-bloods are joining my cause. We even had friends at Camp, friends who keep me updated. Hundreds of us, all forsaken by our parents. And with every demigod that joins up, to help tear Olympus to the ground, the gods grow weaker. And he grows stronger."

The sarcophagus glittered in the dim light drifting in through the bay windows. Piper bit her tongue. When no one said anything gratifyingly dramatic, Luke seemed a little put out, but continued on: "The Titan Lord Kronos is reforming. For each creature that pledges to serve, another piece appears, called up from the Pit. Soon we will forge him a new body, one better than anything Hephaestus ever created."

As he spoke the Titan's name, thunder boomed.

After a long moment, Annabeth spoke. "Luke, this is insane."

Luke gave her a long look before crossing the room to stand right in front of her, nose to nose. Piper cringed, expecting the worst, but Luke didn't touch Annabeth. He was breathing hard. "Join me," he breathed. "Join me, and we can avenge Thalia. And Perseus. You can fulfill your wildest dreams, build a monument to them that lasts a thousand years and more! A temple to the creators of a new age!"

Annabeth spat in his face.

As Luke yelped and jumped back, Piper shouted, putting all her emotions - fear of Luke, anger at his use of the dead as excuses for his actions, disgust at that thing in the sarcophagus - into her words: "Luke, Agrius, Oreius- sleep!"

The bear twins immediately slumped over. Luke stumbled, obviously struggling against the charmspeak, opening his mouth to shout, but Piper yelled at him again, and he went to the floor.

Piper grabbed Tyson's arm, pulling him as best she could toward the door. Annabeth was already out, racing down the hall toward the lower decks. Piper bolted after her, Tyson only a step behind. They thundering down a stairwell, shoving past the dazed passengers and skittered around a corner. Piper didn't have any idea where they were going, but Annabeth led them out a door and onto a deck with only a few lounge chairs and- the lifeboats.

As Annabeth worked the control panel attached to the nearest one, she panted, "The charmspeak won't hold him long, we have to be far, far away before he comes to. Good thinking, Piper."

The machinery whirred to life, the massive metal arms moving to dangle the lifeboat over the water. "Okay, in," said Annabeth, leaping nimbly inside. Piper hesitated only a moment before jumping after her, her stomach lurching unpleasantly at the drop. Tyson's weight sent the boat swinging in the air. Piper was glad to see that he was still carrying their duffel bags.

Upstairs, Piper could hear shouts- Luke must have woken up. Annabeth snatched up her knapsack, pulling out- a thermos?

Before Piper could snap that this was no time for tea, _we're not fucking British Annabeth_ , Annabeth shouted "Hold on to your butts!" and snapped the thick cables with her dagger. Piper yelped, snatching hold of her bench. As they fell toward, the water, Annabeth turned the thermos cap.

A white sheet of air exploded from the thermos, driving the lifeboat sideways and turning their free fall to the ocean into forty five degree descent at maddening speed, just in time to avoid an arrow from the ship. Piper held onto the boat for dear life, and Tyson had flung himself over the duffel bags to keep them from flying off. Piper could have sworn she heard laughter as wind blew out of the thermos. They hit the ocean with a thump that made Piper glad she had skipped breakfast, skipped on the water once, twice, than they were zooming along the surface like a speedboat.

Within seconds, the _Princess Andromeda_ had vanished.

"Well," Piper said. "That went pretty well."


End file.
